W3C Working Draft
Accessibility is a major concern for us, and for most of our users. This is why we want and need that some authority establish a standard on this particular subject.
Not surprisingly, we are looking forward the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative.
Our will is to help the community to build a standard and to do so, we response to this 'Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests Problems and Alternatives' paper, published in November 2003.
We will comment this paper folowing the table of content
About : the problem : a false sense of security
Right, the value of a simple visual verification is low, but the value of a global anti robot system is very high.
About : A hierarchy of needs
About : privilege
We don't think this one adds value to the paper : implementing security or preserving privilege for certain user are synonym.
Security without privilege is useless, preserving privilege implies implementing security.
About : identity and humanity
My opinion on those two notion is that they are orthogonal.
|
robot |
human |
Identified |
using my mail client to pop my mail account every 5 minutes |
me with my CB buying something on line |
Anonymous |
using my feed reader to pull news every 5 minutes |
consulting the NY state unified court system |
This concerns two very different problems and thus should be treated as is.
Accessibility of humanity tests (Turing tests) is the subject we are interested in, not accessibility of identity systems.
Note : some identity systems also provide humanity certification, especially the biometric identity system.
About : possible solutions
We distinguish two types of solutions :
- Automated solutions, like CAPTCHA or non public automated turing tests, also known as reverse Turing tests
It includes solutions 1 : logic puzzles, 2 : sound output and 6 : heuristic checks.
- Manual solutions, it includes 4 : live operator, by phone or..., also know as Turing tests.
More to come...